Everything I read were performance tests that were showing much slower performance. I have an ipad mini myself that is maybe 2 years old, and it is so slow surfing the web, as far as I can tell it is ANY website, as to be unusable. I have a feeling if I shell out for a new battery it's going to be fine.
You'd be wrong. That slowness was due to an OS update that was simply a bridge too far for that hardware. I have the same issue with my iPad 2 after upgrading to iOS 9.
Battery lasts pretty much as long as it ever did (10 hours +); and, other than launching and switching Apps, it seems fine; but especially web browsing is WAY slow.
But that's an Application issue; NOT a battery issue.
The amount of uninformed nonsense on here is astounding.
The update doesn't "slow down" the phone as such - it limits peak power draws when the battery is down on overall capacity and the spike would cause a reset (which happens in many other manufacturers' phones - FFS google this, people). Most operations of the phone will remain utterly unchanged, just heavy workloads will be slower than previously.
Say what you like about non-replaceable batteries (hardly specific to Apple) or a badly communicated update, or anything else about them, but the "planned obsolescence" claim is patently nonsense - unless you believe that a phone that runs *some* tasks slightly slower as it ages is forcing users to upgrade more than one that reboots when it hits a CPU intensive task.
Realistically, this feature should have been in place from the start - it's basic power management, but as usual the howling mob would rather jump on the OMG APPLE EV1L BURN THEM bandwagon than actually take an objective viewpoint.
batteries should be able to be replaced without having to trash the device. My Samsung J1 Ace allows for the battery to be replaced.
My iPad 2 hardware is still going strong but I'm stuck on iOS 9 and I'm not getting any security upgrades, no OS upgrades and apps are starting to drop dead because the developers don't support old OSes. My iTouch 5 battery lasts a day while just sitting around and I am also stuck on iOS 9 something and having the same issues as the iPad that I soent $500 on.
iOS Apple devices will no longer be purchased by me. They are expensive low value devices.
I would not want my phone to reboot in the middle of a 999/112 call because some app needed more current than the battery could supply for a single moment. Throttle the processor, keep the device working, especially in case of emergencies
because they're quite literally defective by design).
If they are "Defective by DESIGN", then why, oh, why does my iPhone 6, purchased on September 2014, just return a 93% battery life with the popular "Battery Life" App? And why, oh, why did it actually score BETTER than the average on Geekbench 4 CPU scores?
If it were Defective by DESIGN, then ALL devices would show at least SOME indication of that design-weakness.
As the behavior of the device would have been worse if Apple did nothing, it takes a special kind of shit to suggest Apple was doing this to drive sales.
Funny how no other phone makers have problems with their phones shutting down. Apple gimped their device to cover up their fucked up power system design. Nothing more nothing less.
I'd agree if Apple didn't try to make it impossible for users to change their battery! Making the thing hard to open, gluing everything inside, charging $90 for swapping and putting too small batteries in their phone is ground to sue alone.
Liar, Liar, Hater Liar.
Battery Replacement: $79. Do try to keep up.
iFixit praising Apple for NOT using GLUE to hold batteries down in recent models, unlike Samsung, for instance.
LiPo batteries come in various shapes and sizes. One of the main differences is the size of the cathode. The larger it is the more current that the battery can supply. Apple selected a battery design with a smaller cathode than required, presumably to save space and make their phones a fraction of a millimetre thinner.
My iPhone 6, bought back when they came out in September, 2014, and used continuously ever since, just showed 93% battery capacity using the popular (and supposedly accurate) "Battery Life" App.
Geekbench 4 CPU scores were actually BETTER than average, and the Compute score was only "off" by about 100 points.
No "Slowdown" felt or observed, either. Ever.
So, it is NOT a "Design Defect". It COULD be a battery-supplier-problem (ask Samsung about those!); but if so, it didn't affect MY phone. At all.
Where have you seen a phone, laptop or anything with an adequate lithium battery that shuts down randomly due to it being "old"? That thing pushes multiple of it's capacity in current. "Let's heroically overcome the problem we created on purpose!"
Laptops may have multiples of the current-draw; but they have many MORE multiples of current-CAPACITY in their batteries, and their batteries are generally charged to a much higher voltage than the ones in a smartphone, plus most people don't try to use their laptops and home-phones outside in the winter. Also, with laptops, they have room inside for largish CAPACITORS, which do a LOT to smooth-out the current-spikes seen by the battery; but smartphones simply don't have the room for a 4mm x 4mm electrolytic capacitor or three...
As for phones (like home cordless-phones), they don't have current SURGES typically; although I have definitely seen my cordless-phone "crash" when trying to ring, or trying to initiate a call.
What utter crap. You ever heard of a battery charge indicator? Clue - its on the top right of the screen on most phones and - surprise! - it gives people an idea of how much charge is left! So now, there wouldn't be "random" shutdowns, and if apple built a product where you could change the battery this wouldn't be an issue in the first place would it Mr Shill?
Hey stupid!
Of COURSE iPhones have a "battery indicator", just like EVERYONE. But what was happening was that, the "averaged" battery indicator (just like everyone else's) does not show INSTANTANEOUS drops due to INSTANTANEOUS power requirements; power requirements that are many, many times that of the "steady state" power drain, but which last generally only fractions of a second, or a few seconds (except in the case of running Benchmarks, which are NOT "real-world" tests, unless specifically designed that way).
These instantaneous power drains can exceed the ability of a battery that is either old (which raises the internal resistance of the battery), or cold (which works against the battery's ability to supply power, period). When a battery cannot supply enough power (in this case, current) to meet demand, even instantaneous demand, the laws of physics say that what happens is the VOLTAGE takes a dive. That can result in the power-management circuitry and software shutting-down the phone to protect stuff like RAM and FLASH from "brownout" conditions during writes, and the CPU from "brownout" conditions, which can result in completely unpredictable behavior. But the user just knows that their phone mysteriously shut-off when the battery indicator showed "plenty" (usually 10 to 30 percent) charge remaining.
So, I hope you have learned something here, Hater. Because you sure didn't have this knowledge when you wrote your ignorant comment.
The alternative behavior is random shutdowns or restarts, and a battery that lasts a very short time. If Apple had done nothing, don't you think people would assume their phone was broken and needed replacement?
Bottom line is that Apple allowed the devices to function for longer, without the user having to do anything. It might have been nice to explain, but should it be criminal not to?
I could believe that IF they were popping up a message on users screen explaining the slowdown and that users could just buy a new battery so that they don't think it is time to buy a new phone.
They have already said that's what they are going to do in future releases of iOS.
Apple implemented a technical solution that kept phones usable for LONGER than other phone makers. By not shutting down randomly as the battery aged, by trying to maintain a day of battery life in the phone for a longer period of time, Apple was delaying the time when a user might have to repair or replace a phone.
Shouldn't the fix have been to reduce the instances where it would surge but not slow it down otherwise? Instead, they applied the throttle to everything.
This is just so much horseshit.
I wanted to see how my iPhone 6 Plus, purchased when they came out in September 2014, and used consistently up through the present, fared on the Geekbench 4 and Battery Life apps.
First, my Battery health, according to 2 different Battery Health apps, was 93% on my now over 4 year old battery. So, the idea of "bad battery design" is bullshit.
And as far as my GeekBench 4 scores, my single CPU score is 1571 and Multi-Core Score is 2671. Both of these are OVER the average reported on the GeekBench site. My overall "Compute" score is 4445, which is within about 100 points of the Average GeekBench score for that model.
So: Battery NOT worn-out at ALL after 4 years, and according to the SOMEHOW "gold-standard" GeekBench 4, if there is throttling going on, it doesn't seem to be appreciably affecting performance at ALL.
I know that anecdotes are not data; but they aren't far from it, when a large percentage of the "anecdotes" "line-up".
They only slowed down the devices after detecting a problem with the battery which would have made the device shut down unexpectedly. I once had an iPhone 5 that suffered from that problem: battery would decrease to about 25% and then the whole device would suddenly shut off without warning.
So you have a choice: replace the battery or accept lower performance to keep the device from shutting down randomly.
This is not because the device is old, but because the battery has a problem (for example after having been dropped, or discharged too deeply too many times). I don't see how you can call this planned obsolescence.
It's like a car that detects a problem in the ignition system and therefore limits engine power until it's fixed. Would you sue the car company for that?
I know a lot of people that use iPhones for many, many years. After a while you may have to replace the battery but that is expected for any battery powered device; in no way is there "planned obsolescence", instead there is a falloff in updates but you can continue to use the device for many years beyond that. It's not like Apple disables devices after a certain period of time, they keep working even after they are no longer supported.
Not to mention what is stupid France going to say when Apple counters (truthfully) that they were trying to EXTEND, not SHORTEN the useful lifespan of the product, AND also help the environment by reducing the number of batteries and phones being thrown away.
Slashdot Mirror
Everything I read were performance tests that were showing much slower performance. I have an ipad mini myself that is maybe 2 years old, and it is so slow surfing the web, as far as I can tell it is ANY website, as to be unusable. I have a feeling if I shell out for a new battery it's going to be fine.
You'd be wrong. That slowness was due to an OS update that was simply a bridge too far for that hardware. I have the same issue with my iPad 2 after upgrading to iOS 9.
Battery lasts pretty much as long as it ever did (10 hours +); and, other than launching and switching Apps, it seems fine; but especially web browsing is WAY slow.
But that's an Application issue; NOT a battery issue.
The amount of uninformed nonsense on here is astounding.
The update doesn't "slow down" the phone as such - it limits peak power draws when the battery is down on overall capacity and the spike would cause a reset (which happens in many other manufacturers' phones - FFS google this, people). Most operations of the phone will remain utterly unchanged, just heavy workloads will be slower than previously.
Say what you like about non-replaceable batteries (hardly specific to Apple) or a badly communicated update, or anything else about them, but the "planned obsolescence" claim is patently nonsense - unless you believe that a phone that runs *some* tasks slightly slower as it ages is forcing users to upgrade more than one that reboots when it hits a CPU intensive task.
Realistically, this feature should have been in place from the start - it's basic power management, but as usual the howling mob would rather jump on the OMG APPLE EV1L BURN THEM bandwagon than actually take an objective viewpoint.
Mods: Please mod parent UP. WAY Up!!!
That is a PERFECT explanation. Thank you!!!
batteries should be able to be replaced without having to trash the device. My Samsung J1 Ace allows for the battery to be replaced.
My iPad 2 hardware is still going strong but I'm stuck on iOS 9 and I'm not getting any security upgrades, no OS upgrades and apps are starting to drop dead because the developers don't support old OSes.
My iTouch 5 battery lasts a day while just sitting around and I am also stuck on iOS 9 something and having the same issues as the iPad that I soent $500 on.
iOS Apple devices will no longer be purchased by me. They are expensive low value devices.
You're whining about your iPad 2?!?
Gimme a break!
I would not want my phone to reboot in the middle of a 999/112 call because some app needed more current than the battery could supply for a single moment. Throttle the processor, keep the device working, especially in case of emergencies
Well put, sir!
Outside of moving parts, batteries and leaking capacitors, have you ever had hardware failures in consumer grade electronics? I haven't.
I have. And as a former electronic bench-tech, I have seen many failures from bad design and under-spec'ed components.
The iPhone battery is neither of those.
because they're quite literally defective by design).
If they are "Defective by DESIGN", then why, oh, why does my iPhone 6, purchased on September 2014, just return a 93% battery life with the popular "Battery Life" App? And why, oh, why did it actually score BETTER than the average on Geekbench 4 CPU scores?
If it were Defective by DESIGN, then ALL devices would show at least SOME indication of that design-weakness.
But they don't.
As the behavior of the device would have been worse if Apple did nothing, it takes a special kind of shit to suggest Apple was doing this to drive sales.
Precisely.
Funny how no other phone makers have problems with their phones shutting down. Apple gimped their device to cover up their fucked up power system design. Nothing more nothing less.
Selective Blindness?
https://apple.slashdot.org/com...
https://apple.slashdot.org/com...
Not another maker, but the iPhone 5, which nobody is accusing of having a defective design:
https://apple.slashdot.org/com...
And that's just from ONE article.
I'd agree if Apple didn't try to make it impossible for users to change their battery!
Making the thing hard to open, gluing everything inside, charging $90 for swapping and putting too small batteries in their phone is ground to sue alone.
Liar, Liar, Hater Liar.
Battery Replacement: $79. Do try to keep up.
iFixit praising Apple for NOT using GLUE to hold batteries down in recent models, unlike Samsung, for instance.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/i...
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/S...
LiPo batteries come in various shapes and sizes. One of the main differences is the size of the cathode. The larger it is the more current that the battery can supply. Apple selected a battery design with a smaller cathode than required, presumably to save space and make their phones a fraction of a millimetre thinner.
Quit spreading FUD.
With the 6 they screwed up.
My iPhone 6, bought back when they came out in September, 2014, and used continuously ever since, just showed 93% battery capacity using the popular (and supposedly accurate) "Battery Life" App.
Geekbench 4 CPU scores were actually BETTER than average, and the Compute score was only "off" by about 100 points.
No "Slowdown" felt or observed, either. Ever.
So, it is NOT a "Design Defect". It COULD be a battery-supplier-problem (ask Samsung about those!); but if so, it didn't affect MY phone. At all.
Where have you seen a phone, laptop or anything with an adequate lithium battery that shuts down randomly due to it being "old"? That thing pushes multiple of it's capacity in current.
"Let's heroically overcome the problem we created on purpose!"
Laptops may have multiples of the current-draw; but they have many MORE multiples of current-CAPACITY in their batteries, and their batteries are generally charged to a much higher voltage than the ones in a smartphone, plus most people don't try to use their laptops and home-phones outside in the winter. Also, with laptops, they have room inside for largish CAPACITORS, which do a LOT to smooth-out the current-spikes seen by the battery; but smartphones simply don't have the room for a 4mm x 4mm electrolytic capacitor or three...
As for phones (like home cordless-phones), they don't have current SURGES typically; although I have definitely seen my cordless-phone "crash" when trying to ring, or trying to initiate a call.
What utter crap. You ever heard of a battery charge indicator? Clue - its on the top right of the screen on most phones and - surprise! - it gives people an idea of how much charge is left! So now, there wouldn't be "random" shutdowns, and if apple built a product where you could change the battery this wouldn't be an issue in the first place would it Mr Shill?
Hey stupid!
Of COURSE iPhones have a "battery indicator", just like EVERYONE. But what was happening was that, the "averaged" battery indicator (just like everyone else's) does not show INSTANTANEOUS drops due to INSTANTANEOUS power requirements; power requirements that are many, many times that of the "steady state" power drain, but which last generally only fractions of a second, or a few seconds (except in the case of running Benchmarks, which are NOT "real-world" tests, unless specifically designed that way).
These instantaneous power drains can exceed the ability of a battery that is either old (which raises the internal resistance of the battery), or cold (which works against the battery's ability to supply power, period). When a battery cannot supply enough power (in this case, current) to meet demand, even instantaneous demand, the laws of physics say that what happens is the VOLTAGE takes a dive. That can result in the power-management circuitry and software shutting-down the phone to protect stuff like RAM and FLASH from "brownout" conditions during writes, and the CPU from "brownout" conditions, which can result in completely unpredictable behavior. But the user just knows that their phone mysteriously shut-off when the battery indicator showed "plenty" (usually 10 to 30 percent) charge remaining.
So, I hope you have learned something here, Hater. Because you sure didn't have this knowledge when you wrote your ignorant comment.
Thanks for playing!
It is a fault when they design the case so you can't replace the battery... typically a "user replaceable part".
Really? There are a LOT of devices that have non-user-replaceable batteries, and haven't for YEARS:
1. Pacemakers, infusion pumps and other medical devices.
2. Most computer motherboards these days, at least the ones still with batteries.
3. Some remote controls.
4. Handheld 2-way radios.
5. Some cordless tools and appliances.
6. Some rechargeable flashlights.
7. Most laptops these days.
8. Bluetooth headsets and earbuds.
9. Many hearing-aids.
etc.
Apples actions objectively extended the life of batteries.
And that's why all these bullshit lawsuits and "Investigations" are doomed to fail, as well they should.
The alternative behavior is random shutdowns or restarts, and a battery that lasts a very short time. If Apple had done nothing, don't you think people would assume their phone was broken and needed replacement?
Bottom line is that Apple allowed the devices to function for longer, without the user having to do anything. It might have been nice to explain, but should it be criminal not to?
VERY well-stated!
I could believe that IF they were popping up a message on users screen explaining the slowdown and that users could just buy a new battery so that they don't think it is time to buy a new phone.
They have already said that's what they are going to do in future releases of iOS.
Apple implemented a technical solution that kept phones usable for LONGER than other phone makers. By not shutting down randomly as the battery aged, by trying to maintain a day of battery life in the phone for a longer period of time, Apple was delaying the time when a user might have to repair or replace a phone.
Precisely.
Very nice, are you ready to pay for a smartphone like you pay for a durable product like a car?
At just a little shy of $1000 I already pay for it like a car. Hell I pay for it more than most laptops. Why do most laptops seem to last longer?
You're on THIS site and you have to ask that question?
Wow. Just. Wow...
What I do not get is why there are no thick Android phones available from alternative brands.
Hmmm. Imagine that!
It's almost like "thin is in"...
Everyone but Slashdot users.
Seriously, go back and listen to tech reviewers gushing about how *thin and beautiful* any given new smartphone is.
Exactly!
Shouldn't the fix have been to reduce the instances where it would surge but not slow it down otherwise? Instead, they applied the throttle to everything.
This is just so much horseshit.
I wanted to see how my iPhone 6 Plus, purchased when they came out in September 2014, and used consistently up through the present, fared on the Geekbench 4 and Battery Life apps.
First, my Battery health, according to 2 different Battery Health apps, was 93% on my now over 4 year old battery. So, the idea of "bad battery design" is bullshit.
And as far as my GeekBench 4 scores, my single CPU score is 1571 and Multi-Core Score is 2671. Both of these are OVER the average reported on the GeekBench site. My overall "Compute" score is 4445, which is within about 100 points of the Average GeekBench score for that model.
So: Battery NOT worn-out at ALL after 4 years, and according to the SOMEHOW "gold-standard" GeekBench 4, if there is throttling going on, it doesn't seem to be appreciably affecting performance at ALL.
I know that anecdotes are not data; but they aren't far from it, when a large percentage of the "anecdotes" "line-up".
They only slowed down the devices after detecting a problem with the battery which would have made the device shut down unexpectedly. I once had an iPhone 5 that suffered from that problem: battery would decrease to about 25% and then the whole device would suddenly shut off without warning.
So you have a choice: replace the battery or accept lower performance to keep the device from shutting down randomly.
This is not because the device is old, but because the battery has a problem (for example after having been dropped, or discharged too deeply too many times). I don't see how you can call this planned obsolescence.
It's like a car that detects a problem in the ignition system and therefore limits engine power until it's fixed. Would you sue the car company for that?
Exactly!
There is planned obsolescence, apple has said as much.
Prove it, liar.
I know a lot of people that use iPhones for many, many years. After a while you may have to replace the battery but that is expected for any battery powered device; in no way is there "planned obsolescence", instead there is a falloff in updates but you can continue to use the device for many years beyond that. It's not like Apple disables devices after a certain period of time, they keep working even after they are no longer supported.
Not to mention what is stupid France going to say when Apple counters (truthfully) that they were trying to EXTEND, not SHORTEN the useful lifespan of the product, AND also help the environment by reducing the number of batteries and phones being thrown away.